Years had passed since William completed his first mission successfully, and many more followed. Not an idle moment throughout the last fifty years, as the masters sent him on various tasks from assassination to fighting in a war between two Human countries. Humans, in their far too short existences, constantly fight amongst themselves for land and ridiculous things like women.
William had been under the impression that, since he was an elf, he would spend most of his time in Elven countries. However, contrary to William’s assumption, he had never once stepped foot into any elven lands. Instead he disguised his ears to look more rounded in order to avoid anyone noticing that he was anything but Human. He was even required to slouch more when he wasn’t in the presence of Human royalty, to make himself appear inconspicuous in a crowd. There were innumerable nuances that his masters had required that he became proficient in when it came to staying inside of Human towns or cities.
William walked into his master’s office carrying another sack on his back, containing his latest bounty mission’s target, and sat down in the chair in front of the desk.
His master looked up from the stack of reports that he had been examining and said, “Any complications?”
William looked at his Master for a second before replying, “No Master. No one saw me.”
“Excellent. We received an urgent message from one of our contacts in Trace.” The Master said, “The King of Trace apparently has a mission that he would like completed with utmost haste. You’ll be leaving here shortly.”
While he was still looking outside he said, “You have ten minutes. If you are still here by then you know what will happen.”
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Two days later…
A figure could be seen walking outside of a large encampment. Enroute to the capital, Aston, William was encroached upon by a group of twenty men. They thought the single man riding along the main path toward Aston would be an easy mark for their group, but they were unfortunate to encounter William along the way. After slaughtering all but one of the men, William interrogated the last. The survivor informed William that they were with a bandit group named the Dragon’s Tooth, and William knew the name.
He had not been given an order to attack them, but when he was doing various jobs in Trace, the group had quite a bit of notoriety. The kingdom of Trace placed a rather large bounty on them for anyone who was able to bring the Dragon’s Tooths leader’s head to the closest town hall, and William deduced that the Master would be pleased if he completed a side job along the way as long as it did not hinder his progress. Therefore, an hour later William was walking in the direction he left his horse, sack a little heavier with the groups leader’s head, and began his journey once again. He passed through the city of Caelfall along the way, and dropped the head off at the town hall.
After receiving his bounty and swiftly depositing it into the bank within the same city, William left once again without leaving a trace. Aston was another five days ride to the East, and he was certain the King did not like to be left waiting. Evidently, as his Master told him just before he left, the mark was confidential so the King did not want to leave word of who it was and would tell William once he arrived at the King’s secret chambers.
After riding for a few hours, he heard an ear splitting scream in the air. He turned his head in the direction where the woman’s scream was coming from, and saw a large caravan under attack a few hundred yards ahead of him. Once again, William looked at the bandits and thought for a moment.
Robbing this large of a caravan would require a much larger group than the last that I took care of. Also, looking at the bandits themselves it looks like they had traveled several days through the woods to reach this point. Too much time. William thought swiftly as he was approaching the group.
After he was within a few yards he left the main road and began to go around the caravan, but a woman ran out from the rows of carts and latched onto his hanging leg that was in the stirrup. William stared at the woman questioningly.
“Please…” she nearly whispered, “Help us! They came out of nowhere and started slaughtering everyone!”
William’s face didn’t move an inch from the uninterested expression that he was holding. He had no quarrel with these men. If they had a large bounty on their heads and their camp was reasonably close then he would kill them. Not to help the caravan but to please the Master, but there was no way the bandit camp was even within a day’s ride of here. William said nothing, instead he responded by kicking the woman in the face, forcing her to the ground.
Two of the bandits watched the interaction between them, and ran over to grab the woman. They looked up at the menacing looking man that was sitting upon his horse. He was incredibly large, and from what they could tell under the man’s armor appeared well built. This wasn’t someone they intended to face themselves.
After they grabbed the woman they dragged her back to the encirclement with the rest of the caravan people. All the men and children were dead, and only women remained. The two that grabbed the woman that latched onto William went over to their leader and whispered into his ear. The man perked up when they mentioned a large man that kicked her in the face, and quickly ran over to where William was.
All they found though was the horses tracks in that position, but they could clearly still see William riding a little ways in the distance. Since he was walking around the main path to avoid all of the carts that anyone could be hiding within he was unable to put his horse at a trot without worrying about stray rocks tripping his horse and breaking a leg. The leader of the bandit group, and his two lieutenants, got horses and ran after the man.
“Hey! Stop!” William heard from behind him.
William had just reached the end of the caravan where he could rejoin the main path, and after doing so he turned his horse around to look towards the people calling out to him. The leader of the group was a tall man. Not as tall as William, but only an inch or two shorter. All three of the group were wearing good quality armor, which spoke to their group’s success in banditry. The leader looked at William intently, attempting to see under the dark hood that he wore.
“You think that you can jus’ walk away after seein’ what we did ‘ere?”, The man spoke in an unintelligible accent speaking to his life of crime, and lack of education.
William smiled devilishly under his hood, but chided himself for overconfidence. In this situation the only thing that would keep them from attacking and holding him up any more would be fear.
“I think that you couldn’t stop me even if you wished.” William responded in a confident tone, “What you’ve done here has nothing to do with me.”
The leader smirked and chuckled, followed by a couple dry laughs from his two companions, and said, “An yer thinkin’ thas’ good ‘nough eh?”
William observed the man from under his hood and replied, “I think you are misunderstanding me. I have no reason to worry about anything you are saying. Remove yourself from my path and you will be able to leave here with your spoils.”
“Oh? That right? Hear that boys? Guess we should just let ye be on yer way then eh?”, the leader asked condescendingly while rolling his eyes, and he looked back at his men before giving his men the signal to move forward.
After that, the three men leapt off of their horses and started towards William. Rather than waiting for their advance, William took the chance to go on the offensive. He immediately leapt off his own horse and flung two daggers at the two surrounding their leader. This slowed them down, and separated the leader from them, allowing William to fight him unhindered.
William met a strike aimed at his throat with his long sword that he drew from his back, and immediately followed it with a strike of his own. As the leader attempted to block his strike, William changed it’s direction and the leader of the group took a good slash to his calf. The man screamed out in pain, and by that time the two other enemies had made their way to William already and began their own set of attacks.
William rolled out from between the three, as he had ended up behind the leader after he had cut his achilles tendon, in order to get position behind the three men. A flurry of strikes coming from the three adversaries that William was forced to focus upon came next, and not a single strike reached him.
As he was focusing on the current battle, William failed to notice that small green-skinned humanoids had made their way to the brawl, and were inching closer. By the time that he did take notice, it was too late.
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William was in the middle of blocking one strike from each of the two lieutenants when he felt a small tug at his waist, and noticed a goblin had cut off the coin purse located at his right hip. He growled in frustration, and began to attack the three even faster. Lest he lose the creatures William was forced to consider a recourse that the Master had forbidden, and after whispering only a few words of power, the leader of the group immediately fell. The two Lieutenants, seeing their leader fall, became less cautious and attacked William without abandon.
After William had nearly hacked them both to pieces, their two large bodies fell to the ground lifeless. All of this had taken place in less than five minutes, but goblins were agile little creatures when it came to making an escape, and they had to be or their entire race would have been annihilated long ago. William bent down at the monsters tracks, and cast a tracking spell that would show him the direction they had taken.
He followed the tracks for another five minutes before he came to a point where the footprints he followed, which appeared to him as a small light flowing in the wind, was literally going through the wall of a cliff face. William reached out, and nearly fell over when his hand went straight through it as well. He blinked a few times, and immediately the illusion disappeared. Before him was a massive cave entrance, one that appeared to be nearly three or four houses wide.
William looked around for a moment, before he started to enter into the cave cautiously. He knew that he needed to continue his journey, but the pouch that those infernal creatures had stolen contained the key he needed to give the guard at the secret tunnel to the King’s chambers. If he turned up there without it he would have to kill the guard, and William doubted the masters would be pleased.
The tunnel itself was massive. An entire army would be able to file down this cave at least a hundred wide. He had already walked for half a mark before he could make out any sort of exit or light at the end of the pathway. It appeared to be some sort of torch light, as it was flickering in the nonexistent wind. William cast a spell to merge with the shadows, and the place where he was standing appeared to be vacated immediately.
He followed the shadows, traveling within them, wherever the torches could not reach. This was a method that his masters took an entire decade to train him in, and he understood the technique inside and out. It allowed William to become one with the shadows so long as no light shone upon him. The reason it took so long to train in was because the dark magic used was incredibly complex, and bending along with the darkness required an immense amount of focus.
William came to a gigantic opening, where he found a peculiar sight. It appeared to be nearly two hundred goblins sitting around a massive pillar that contained a single snow white stone. The stone seemed to shine upon the pedestal, and the light it gave covered the entire room that was nearly a mile wide.
William watched from the corner of the room while the fiend that stole his purse was walking toward an older one with a staff. William could only assume this was the goblin shaman, or chief of sorts, and that the creature was bringing William’s coins to share with the group. However, the second that the thief gave the shaman the small bag William witnessed as he put William’s purse up onto the pillar with the stone. It appeared to William that the monsters were using his coins as some sort of offering, but they would not find him to be willing to let go of that pouch so easily.
He waited for hours, and the gremlins went about their day as usual. The goblin shaman seemed to be the one that enjoyed most of the females, where some of the male warriors also got that right. The weaklings of the group did menial tasks such as mining further down the room, or setting up new tents for the children who grew old enough to have their own. Goblins reproduce faster, and their young mature relatively quickly, considering their average intelligence, other than the Chief, is low.
After six hours had passed all of them were sleeping, save a few guards that stood around the perimeter of their camp. They were William’s first target. The look outs were space out in order to cover more area in groups of two, and they had eight different groups. William came upon the first one rather quickly, and easily dispatched both in a second with precise cuts to their throats. The two attempted to cry out, but William whispered under his breath, and a silencing ward appeared around him as he went about his business.
The slaughter that followed was swift and merciless. William killed all of the guards without any trouble, and began making his way through the camp. Each of the goblin males that were too weak to impress any of the females stayed in tents of ten. This made killing them silently significantly more difficult, but not impossible. He had already killed 16 of the 200 or so that were in the cave, and they would not be the last.
In order to be sure no sound would leak out William laid another silencing spell upon the entire area of the tent, allowing no sound to escape through the entrance. Once inside he instantly cut the head off of the creature that was sleeping right inside of the door. The monsters, since they were the weak ones of the bunch they had no beds or nice amenities. Instead they all slept upon the ground closely in order to remain warm. The sleeping form next to the one William had killed first felt a spray of blood hit his face, but before he was able to even open his eyes William had already pierced his heart with a dagger he had hidden on his person. The tent was small, so William was unable to wield the swords on his back, but he always kept various weapons hidden on his person at all times.
After the first two monsters died the other eight awoke and realized what was happening. They all began screeching, and speaking in goblin tongue, but William could not understand any of it. The next second three of them rushed at William, while two of them attempted to rush towards the opening to the tent. The three attempting to attack William were easily dispatched, as they didn’t have any weapons inside of the tent, and the two heading toward the door followed as well. William moved like lightning, zipping between each and every one of the gremlins. Each of them fell on the floor dead the second that he left them.
After a few seconds the entire tent went eerily silent, and William made his way to the others. This process went on until William had already killed 150 of the insignificant ones, and the warriors were not much more of a challenge. Goblins’ only advantage was their numbers, but William isolated each group before entering their tent. He killed goblin after goblin until he finally reached the Chief’s tent.
The Chief’s tent was significantly larger than the rest. Inside a foul smell wafted out, and William nearly turned around. After a second of deliberating William opened the fold and Noticed several human females chained to the walls. A few had evident bumps forming on the bellies of a some of them. The Chieftain must have heard the tent open, for it’s eyes opened immediately after William stepped inside. He stood, throwing all the females off of him in his wake, and William found the disgusting creature was completely naked. The chieftain did not appear to care, as it grabbed a war axe that was laying on a small table, and let out a battle cry.
William unsheathed the longsword from his back, and used the hand and a half grip to block the war axe with both arms. For such a small creature, the goblin was stronger than anticipated. William pushed back with the flat of the blade, forcing the monster to leave open his left side, and easily scored a slash across the creature’s hip.
Blood oozed out of the wound as the goblin screeched, and the female ran out of the tent. William heard them scream out again as they witnessed the bloody seen outside, but the Chief could not take his focus away from William as their battle was still on going. The Chief glared at William madly and immediately tried a downward strike to William’s right side, and he deftly dodged it before it even came close. He wasted no further time and slipped behind the chief and slammed his pommel against the creature’s temple. He heard an audible crack as the Chief’s skull split. The Chief was stunned by the strike, and this gave William all the opportunity he needed to remove his head.
Most of the females were already so out of it they didn’t make a sound, only staring forward blankly. A few had the mind to ask for help, but most only desired for their pain to end. William ended their lives swiftly and without pain, although it was less out of mercy and more out of necessity. He wasn’t wearing a mask when he came in, so any of the women conscious enough to ask for help would have been able to provide a description of him. He left after finishing with his task and left the tent.
William could feel some sort of power wading from the stone even from several yards away, and he immediately focused within himself to shield any of his thoughts from permeating. Mages who focused on the soul could sometimes read their enemy’s mind, so William’s Master diligently trained him in the ability to shield his mind from outside interference. After confirming that the stone could not influence his mind in any way William made his way toward it. As he got closer he felt its power grow stronger and stronger, and without William even noticing the stone was easily able to invade his mind, but nothing negative appeared to happen.
He approached the stone slowly, and it took a few seconds to reach it. The pedestal it sat upon was about to William’s chest, which made it a little taller than all the goblins other than the Chief. William reached his hand out, feeling an almost imperceptible feeling of excitement as he looked upon the glowing orb, and the second that his hand laid upon it the power filling the cavern immediately died down. It was as if the stone was attempting to protect itself from William, but clearly rocks were not able to do things so intelligent. William deduced that it was most likely that once someone held the stone, the power was no longer able to be released from it.
He lifted it, and it felt quite heavy for a simple rock. It seemed to be nearly sixty pounds, but that was no significant amount to an elf. He brought it closer to his eyes in order to gaze upon it, and peered into the endless light that continued to shine from the stone. It appeared to be some sort of expensive gem to William’s discerning eyes, but he could not make out what kind. He had never seen its equal.
After a few more moments of peering at the crystal’s surface William decided to take it with him. Perhaps someone in Aston will have some sort of idea what kind of it was. He placed it into his sack, and placed a small spell upon the bag in order to keep the glowing from the stone to be seen outside of it. After that he immediately grabbed his coin purse, which was the only other thing placed upon the pedestal, and left the cave.
It took him only a moment to find his horse. Tracian horses were bred to do well in battle. Though they did not directly interact or fight in the battles, they would never run away from their owner if ridden into it.
His horse was grazing only a little ways away from the bodies of the three bandits that William had ended. The horse looked up at William, and he could swear he saw the horse make a face saying ‘what took you so long?’.
“Alright alright. I’m all set, let’s go.” William muttered to the ornery beast.
The ride the rest of the way to Aston was relatively uneventful. Banditry was not taken seriously in this kingdom, and so bandits ran amok throughout the entire country. He came across several different groups as he traveled, but as long as none disrupted his journey he let them be. He was already behind schedule, and the Master would not be pleased if he was even more late because he decided to kill a few bandits.
Midway through the seventh day of travel, when he should have arrived that morning, William finally spotted the city’s walls. He spurred his horse, and prepared himself to meet the King.